A Brevan Howard Asset Management employee has denied allegations by Japanese regulators that he engaged in interest-rate manipulation while at Citigroup.

Japan's Financial Services Agency said that Christopher Cecere and another Citi trader in Tokyo asked bankers to change data submitted during the setting of a benchmark lending rate in Japan. Despite accusing Cecere, known as "Director A" in the administrative case concluded last year, of "seriously unjust and malicious" behavior, the regulator simply fined Citi and did not pursue Cecere or the other trader further.

Accordng to the regulator, Cecere and the other trader asked a Citi employee and employees at other banks in an effort to influence the Tokyo interbank offered rate to benefit their derivatives trades. The FSA did not say whether the scam succeeded.

But Cecere said that neither Citi nor the FSA bothered to question him during their investigation, and the Citi paid him the deferred compensation that he was entitled to only as an employee in good standing. Cecere said he did nothing wrong.